24
I dont use neopronouns for myself, but as a non-native english speaker, i struggle with reffering to people with neopronouns because i dont know how to properly use them.
About they/them, i dont feel about it in any way offensive, even though i dont use it personally. For me, it is just a universally neutral way to refer to person, if, for example, i dont know their exact pronouns, and for every person that i reffered this way, they are okay with it, including myself.
As a native english speaker, i avoid using pronouns when referring to people with neopronouns because i don't know how to properly use them.
Its really not through lack of knowledge its lack of exposure. I basically never hear neopronouns used in practice. So I worry I'll get them wrong, in some way I don't understand if I try to use them, as I lack an example to follow. Getting them wrong would be disrespectful, so instead I just try to phrase in a way that avoids needing to use pronouns, which I know for certain is not technically wrong.
I do want to be better than that.
Ze/Zir sounds pretty cool. I think that if I were to regularly hear or read others using neopronouns correctly, it would be clear and intuitive to use them myself.
Nobody in my peer group uses neopronouns, so I don't get regular practice. I wish you peace in this.
- I'm she/they
If you enjoy scifi, you may check out Ann Leckie. She uses some neopronouns for a small number of characters. They are all great books as well. She's created an incredible universe full of wonderfully thought out gender diversity.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Hey so im pretty sure weve interacted before and im so sorry if i messed up pronouns!
I sometimes go too fast to read the username all the time, but ill be adding a user tag to prevent this in the future. If its big and red i notice lol
Sorry again ❤️❤️
Thank you, apology accepted. I'm not sure if you did actually. The fact that you're willing to learn and do better means you're a good person. I've encountered a lot of people who refuse to do better or say that I'm wrong for having pronoun preferences.
Well in any case i dont like if i did so i do the work to change it. If i want (she/her) then its hypocritical to gloss over others pronouns. Also im older so im learning all the time. I think its lovely, every being on earth deserves to be referred to the way they want❤️
Its no problem at all ❤️
Could someone kindly explain to me how these and other similar pronouns work? Do they have some meanings or is it more about how they sound?
I'm from a non-English speaking country, where pronouns other than classic male/female are almost never used due to our language, so I've never encountered them yet.
I don't think they'll make their way to many languages any time soon, but I'm still curious.
They are gender neutral pronouns which are intended to replace he/him or she/her pronouns while leaving all other sentence grammar intact. Compared to They/them pronouns which function differently grammatically. They're also singular in nature. Which they/them can be used singularly, but Ze/Zir, Xe/Xem/Xyr, Vi/Vis, etc. are always singular, just like he/him or she/her. It's very easy to swap them out because English doesn't have much gramatical gender in it, unlike other languages like spanish. Although I hear there are strides made to create gender neutral grammar in spanish.
Hmm, okay. I think I get the idea now. Thanks for the explanation.
Just one more thing. You mentioned pronouns Xe/Xem/Xyr. Why are there 3 forms? Is it like he/him/his, with the third one added for clarity, since it may not he obvious?
Yeah that's how it is. For Ze/Zir Zir takes the position of him and his. Which is why I only included the two forms.
"I borrowed his car" becomes "I borrowed zir car".
"I asked him for $20" becomes "I asked zir for $20".
In the case of Xe/Xem/Xyr it goes
"I borrowed xyr car" and "I asked xem for $20" respectively.
It’s worth noting that until quite recently English used gender with words like: actor/actress, waiter/waitress, etc and a little further back there was: doctor/doctrix, navigator/navigatrix. etc
Neo-pronouns are for people who don’t want to linguistically identify as male nor female and dislike the use of the singular “they”.
I wish pronouns weren't related at all to gender, like in Finnish where it's hän, or Turkish where it's o. Imo gender should be no more than an adjective in language, just like "British" "black" or "lower class" is. Thus I'd rather use they/them for everyone, but I will begrudgingly use he/she for people if they request it, since it's so ingrained in the language. But neopronouns aren't as ingrained, so imo this makes things unnecessarily confusing and I'd rather just use they/them for these people
Sorry if that makes me a transphobe
I wish pronouns weren’t related at all to gender
Yeah, in English they don't really have to be. Pronouns can be used by anybody for any reason, whether they are a specific gender or not.
Edit: With their consent, of course.
Yuuuup. We try to get people more comfortable using them, especially when it comes to conjugating because even we trip up with the proper forms for some of them. It's a lot easier in spaces where you can display your pronouns, especially online where it's harder to miss, but it goes beyond simply being aware of them. Not much else to do on this end of things but ultimately it's all a matter of people being acclimated to them, I keep encouraging folks who use neos to any extent to stick with em so that more and more people can get used to it but yeah it takes tons of patience with others.
- Cass (xe/xem)
Yes. We do, constantly. We have even been told that folks do not come to lemmy to pay attention to things like pronouns, dissapointingly.
We have our pronouns in our display name and in our profile, but apparently a lot of clients do not show display names nor can access profiles.
Why any would want to use clients missing such basic features is anybeing's guess. However, we imagine it has something to do with what we have been told about why beings use lemmy.
Is there an android client that gets it right? It seems Voyager never will
Summit can show display names, I'm not sure if it's the default though
load more comments
(5 replies)
I've been trying some new phone clients recently, and some do not show screen names anywhere. Any client that doesn't show the screen name is not fit for purpose.
I don't understand neopronouns. I almost never hear them said, so I generally avoid sentences that require pronouns because I'm worried I'll get the neopronouns wrong. Can you provide an example of cele or celes in a sentence? I want to refer to cele correctly. (was that right?)
For me personally, I prefer usernames since they're immutable and unique per instance. I feel like actual pronoun tags would be a good feature, but then that'd be another thing only a subset of clients implement.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Honestly, I feel you. I might be responsible sometimes for misgendering people.
It's not a will to do so but mostly it becomes hard to remember every person I encounter what are their pronouns and name.
I know it is common courtesy but I'm having a hard time sometimes. So I tend to ask again and try to not misgender but sometimes I fail.
Even though misgendering sucks I am happy when people do actually try. The thing I have no respect or forgiveness for is people who intentionally refuse to use my pronouns out of principle or say that I'm crazy or making a fool of trans people.
That's plain disrespect and a denial of your own identity so yeah. I get that. I have been deadnamed on purpose by my ex sister-in-law and misgendered out of spite.
That sucks, I'm sorry you had to go through that. No one should have to go through that kind of shitty treatment.
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
24 points (100.0% liked)
Trans
2209 readers
5 users here now
General trans community.
Rules:
-
Follow all blahaj.zone rules
-
All posts must be trans-related. Other queer-related posts go to c/lgbtq.
-
Don't post negative, depressing news articles about trans issues unless there is a call to action or a way to help.
Resources:
Best resource: https://github.com/cvyl/awesome-transgender Site with links to resources for just about anything.
Trevor Project: crisis mental health services for LGBTQ people, lots of helpful information and resources: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/
The Gender Dysphoria Bible: useful info on various aspects of gender dysphoria: https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en
StainedGlassWoman: Various useful essays on trans topics: https://stainedglasswoman.substack.com/
Trans resources: https://trans-resources.info/
[USA] Resources for trans people in the South: https://southernequality.org/resources/transinthesouth/#provider-map
[USA] Report discrimination: https://action.aclu.org/legal-intake/report-lgbtqhiv-discrimination
[USA] Keep track on trans legislation and news: https://www.erininthemorning.com/
[GERMANY] Bundesverband Trans: Find medical trans resources: https://www.bundesverband-trans.de/publikationen/leitfaden-fuer-behandlungssuchende/
[GERMANY] Trans DB: Insurance information (may be outdated): https://transdb.de/
[GERMANY] Deutsche Gesellschaft für Transidentität und Intersexualität: They have contact information for their advice centers and some general information for trans and intersex people. They also do activism: dgti.org
*this is a work in progress, and these resources are courtesy of users like you! if you have a resource that helped you out in your trans journey, comment below in the pinned post and I'll add here to pass it on
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS